May 11, 2008

Pitch-black and toweringBirds making nests on the strength of her arms.Grand castle for red ants and lizardsAn architecture growing from its own shadow.The day is about to collapse. Her weather-beaten jointsGrow weaker and twisted.With bitter seeds of karma hangingShe learns to love all unworthy of love.Conversing with ghosts all nightUnderworld dwellers, eyes awash with milkWhose breasts were once full of January rainAnd whose nipples erect skyward licked by the sun.She used to roam abhorring starsOnly walking to kill distance, forgetting directionsNot thinking of arriving anywhereNot entering anyone’s paradiseAnd shouting to those who linger, fallingIn God:“Eternal life beheads monumentsor buries itself into underground extinction!”They’re angry and curse her to vanishAbsorbed into the black tree’s cambium:The king crowned with a kite-frameTree rings and their prophecies.Tower of prayer-call in the distance. Birds arrivePecking the dusk’s last light with their golden warbles.The peasants hurry home to prepare fire and pray.A visage, a pattern from a simple surahI scratch the body that groans in the trunk.

Note:

Trembesi: the name of a tree (Pipturus nicanuss).Surah: a chapter in the Qu’uran.

SITA’S FIRE

Dissolve my body in the flame!Sita screams. Before collapsingbehind the wood smoke soaring up-wards. The heatand the explosion of burning fat, a canon shootingfireflies to the sky. A typhoon of flame reddening the azure…Lips bitter. A million eyes tearing me apartscreaming the curses of the gods.What sin have I commited?Strong ash-colored arms. Immoral desire.Wink of hated destiny. And springcleverly teaches me to make love.There is no more fear. Holy war is in vain.As is revolution. But why do I still heara revolver shot in the ribs. A bitter trickleis released. Shattered I fall from the embraceof the rough man who’d achieved what he longed for.Deadly passion. Later when the eagles from the gulfflutter wildly clawing at the ghosts of soldiers,troops who’ve burnt god’s incarnation, scattermy soul in your pain, Dasamuka.We reincarnate as a pair of dragonshunting the moon in the sky.

Note:At the end of the great epoch of Ramayana, after king Rama defeats the tenfaceddemon king Dasamuka (Rahwana) and rescues his kidnapped wife Sita,his subjects welcome Rama’s return. However there is concern about whetherSita has been able to remain pure and faithful to Rama. Sita is put to the test offire.